M1A2 Heng Long US Army based in Romania

[c.rainford73]

Currently the abrams is using the stock Heng Long/Taigen elevation setup through the IBU2U. It is functional but not self leveling....yet

[BarryC]

Thanks for posting the vid Carl.

Operation of the azimuth looks pretty good, cool!! Could not really see the elevation action?

Barry

The elevation electronics are not self leveling....yet That is the system I plan to order from rctanksof okc that you showed me. Thanks for checking it out Barry

Carl,

The setup at RC Tanks of OKC will not maintain the elevation setting while the tank maneuvers. It will only cause the main gun to elevate to cross over the engine deck. It will not function as a "target lock" for elevation.

Barry

[c.rainford73]

Oh thanks Barry for the heads up. So it will make the gun raise to clear the engine deck as you noted but no target lock...
Sometimes my brain is just fried lol I can see if once I install the servo elevation system if it can be wired into the locking system I already have in the turret.

[BarryC]

As I recall Michael said you need two gyros, one for each function.

Barry

[c.rainford73]

As I recall Michael said you need two gyros, one for each function.

Barry

I will contact the electrics guru himself (Mr MichaelC) and pick his brain when I have some free time. He is a crafty fellow for sure and very helpful.

[Rocketman]

Wow nice work there. Someone else been following the Ironfist brigade I see. I toyed for weeks over which colour to do mine to the point where I actually bought four tins of NATO green! Very nicely done good to see another Abrams in the fleet.

[c.rainford73]

Wow nice work there. Someone else been following the Ironfist brigade I see. I toyed for weeks over which colour to do mine to the point where I actually bought four tins of NATO green! Very nicely done good to see another Abrams in the fleet.

Thanks Rocketman it's really a fun tank to drive and the paint I chose was my way to change it up from the traditional NATO paint and desert yellow.

[MichaelC]

As I recall Michael said you need two gyros, one for each function.

Barry

I will contact the electrics guru himself (Mr MichaelC) and pick his brain when I have some free time. He is a crafty fellow for sure and very helpful.

Barry, Carl,

The engine deck kit from OKC is really for the Clark Tk-24/Tk-60G2 electronics which has both horizontal target locking and vertical stabilization. You cannot use it by itself just to to prevent the main gun from crashing into the engine deck. I have try to do this with two gyro but it was very difficult to adjust and too sensitive for our purpose (I have to use heli gyros). I have been trying to install the Tk24G2 for a fellow member on a Heng Long Leo, but there is a limitation of the sensors being 8 cm from the main electronics, which means that the only way you can do it is to put the electronics into the turret. This is fine for Tamiya Leo/Type 10 as it is designed with all the electronics in the turret, but is much more difficult to do in a Heng Long Leo.

What I use on Carl's Heng Long M1 is actually a Chinese brand MFU's own stabilizer unit, which is plug and play with any servo elevation and rotation. Here is a picture of the wiring for it in Chinese (I know enough written chinese to figure out what goes where. The CS-TK-SWB is the stabilizer unit that sits in the turret):

Basically it is plug and play into any tank with a servo elevation and servo rotation as long as a separate power feed goes into it. It actually also has a port for the Heng Long Rotation unit, but it is much slower. I used it in my Merkava, but it is best to stick with servo rotation.

For Carl's M1, it is basically all set-up. All you need to do it to convert the Heng Long elevation to servo elevation, and then couple of servo connections and you should also have vertical stabilization. I just need to tell you where to plug in the servo elevation unit and the MFU elevation feed.

I still have two more of these units as I find them sufficient enough for our purpose and the plug and play is simple to install.

MichaelC.

[c.rainford73]

MichealC as usual you are a wealth of knowledge and information Very lucky to have you on my side of the pond lol. So if I order the servo elevation system from Ian I'll be setup with all the required hardware.

Silly question

Should I upgrade my IBU2U to the full option upgrade from the base version so I can control servo elevation and traverse from the IBU? I see Ian's videos where you send the serial number to IBU and for a small fee you can get the upgrade on the SD card and plug into the IBU2U base version....

It seems like a simple upgrade financially too.

Thanks for your feedback Mike

[MichaelC]

Yes indeed, if you have the elevation kit, then it is just a matter of plugging the elevation servo into connection a (b is for rotation), and connect c to either the IBU2U elevation servo port, or the receiver channel that controls the elevation.

I have an IBU2U FO for the Merkava, but it does not have elevation anyway, so I can't really say whether it is worth it or not. I never like Clark's elevation control so I always switch it to a separate channel on the receiver and mapped it to the Clark's elevation channel instead. I think the other advantage of IBU2U FO is the extra sound function, so if you can use it then maybe its worthwhile. I can't really say whether the servo elevation is worth the upgrade by itself.